I look up at him. I imagine his hand running through my hair . . . my implanted hair. My real hair.
. . . No, Hailey. There’s a reason you don’t hula anymore.
How warm his hand would feel, in my real hair . . .
No.
. . . if we do hook up, because just maybe we will, I’ll never have to worry about him finding out, about him leaving me.
Don’t you remember the promise you made?
Only until I have enough to get my implants.
I hear myself say yes.
“Great. I’ll talk to ’em. Set you up.” He winks.
I just stand there. I’m not sure if what I’ve just done is a good thing, but . . . maybe, maybe I wouldn’t get the job.
Come on, Hailey. You know you will. And then you’ll get to be with him on stage every night, twice a night. I’ll get to stand at a safe distance, but close enough to see the muscles in his body move as he works the fire knife—
“Now. What’re we drinkin’?”
“Uh . . . ” I get myself back on track. I add the last shot: schnapps. “It’s this new thing. Pineapple Dream.” I turn on the blender and shout over it. “One of the bartenders down at the Kahiki pool invented it and they were serving it for, like, six months, but the four kinds of alcohol were killing the taps so they were replacing like one every two weeks. I conned the guy into giving me his recipe so I could make it at home.”
The machine whizzes to a stop, and I pour the drink into a highball—one in a set I’d also bought at the resort gift shop. There’s a hula girl on each side of the glass.
When I pour the liquid in, I see the girl move. Her hip was shifted to the left; now it’s shifted to the right.
Toke winks at me and takes his first sip. “Ahh. Kickin’.”
I don’t respond, because the hula girl on his glass, she cocks her foot again—from the right to the left.
He sets down the glass and comes around the bar to stand next to me. Close. Suddenly he touches my cheek; his fingers are cold from grasping the glass.
I almost pull away.
“What?” He blinks. “I said I liked it. More, please.”
“Oh, I . . .” I take his glass and pick up the blender again, and this time my hands shake as I’m pouring the stuff in his glass, and it dribbles over the sides. When I pick it up to hand it to him, it’s so cold and sticky it slides out of my hand, crashes to the coffee-colored tile floor, and shatters.
“Oh, shit.” I scramble to pick up the shards, and he crouches with me and grabs my hand.
“Don’t!” he says. “Don’t. You’ll cut yourself.”
His hand is warm and firm; I feel a wave down my body, and something like coconut oil between my legs. He smells like hops and beach sand. I sense that something’s about to happen, like maybe he’ll charm me into the queen-sized bed my father bought me as a you’re-a-big-girl-now-you’re-moving-away gift.
I’m suddenly aware that my Batik wrap is open to expose my bathing suit.
“You look great.” His hand settles on my cheek. “Seriously. You’re so beautiful.”
I close my eyes, feel his breath as he comes closer, his lips brush mine, and I start to respond and then—
—I suddenly feel hands, I’m sure of it, hands, yank on my wig. Oh God Oh God who’s pulling on my wig please don’t let it come off!
I shriek. Toke is so startled he yells too.
I touch my wig, touch it all over to be certain it’s still there. Is he screaming because somehow my wig came off?
No. He looks at me. He’s white.
My wig is fine.
“I’m . . . I’m sorry, I . . .” Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. “No, no, I wanted you to kiss me, I did, really . . .”
But I can tell he doesn’t believe me.
“Um,” he swallows. “No. Sorry.” Like he told me not to, he picks up a few shards of glass. “Let’s go swimming.”
Dammit.
He stands, dumps the glass in his hand in my trash. He goes into the bedroom to retrieve his towel, then grabs mine, the one that says Disney’s Typhoon Lagoon and is in the shape of a surfboard. He stands by my door, holding it out to me. “Coming?”
I touch my wig again. It’s fine.
“In a minute.” I stand up, and my legs are stiff. I go into the bedroom, close the door, take off my wig, and put on my swim cap, the one that has synthetic tufts sewn into it to make it appear there’s hair tucked up inside.
On my way out the door, where still he stands, frozen, I pass a glance at my kitchen—it’s marble and full of hula girls; I have a hula girl clock, a hula girl statue, even a hula girl picture frame that says Kahiki Moon Resort. In it is my favorite picture—the only one I have of me and Toke together, backstage at the show when I brought him a cup of coffee and he wanted his friend to take the photo to prove that it wasn’t beer he was drinking before a performance. I look at that picture, and wonder sometimes if I can ever legitimately show it to people and say, “That’s my boyfriend.”
When I look at Toke, he doesn’t make eye contact. He’s looking at his shoes.
I close the door and lock it, and down we go to the pool.
~~**~~
My father didn’t like to hug me, but he was still a good dad.
He was always encouraging me to be the best at everything. I’d bring home a story I wrote, and he’d say, “This is a good first attempt, but you need to fix this and that to make it perfect.” He’d take me to Reed’s to buy new clothes, and he’d say, “That’s a nice color, but I think it makes you look a little heavy.” Every time he pointed out something I needed to change, I’d work hard, dreaming of the day when I’d do something to the T and he’d say, “Wow, that’s flawless! You really are unequaled!”
Sometimes it was hard on me, but I know it was because he wanted me to understand my hairlessness wouldn’t make or break me, like it did my mom. She was a dancer. Then she got alopecia after she had me, and was so ashamed of it, she’d killed herself when I was too little to remember. He explained to me it was because she felt she wasn’t perfect anymore, and he didn’t want me to be like that. So, under his watchful eye, I had to excel at everything, and I always had to come out on top. Somehow, in those moments when I had conquered something, I felt like I had a brand new perm, the thickest, most gorgeous head of hair known to man—just like the Breck Girl on TV.
There was only one other way I could make myself feel pretty like that, and that was imagining I was in the tropics.
I was always freezing. During the bitter winters, when the other kids were outside throwing snowballs in the yard, I was holed up in my room with the electric heat cranked to ninety degrees. I’d lie on my bed and long to be in my wall mural: a palm-tree-shaded beach with Tahitian blue water. Sometimes I could close my eyes and smell coconuts and taste pineapple. Oh, to be in the sun, away from this dreary place. If I were in the mural, I wouldn’t have to wear so many clothes, and guys would go so ga-ga over my nice figure they’d forget all about my wig. I even envisioned myself, sometimes, in a grass skirt, doing the hula, and every man on the beach would stop and watch me. I’d never be cold again, and I’d have men.
I was fifteen—a sophomore—and it was Spirit Week at our high school, and a new girl had moved to town a month before. She was always alone, carrying her books like one might carry logs to the fire. She barely smiled, had sunken cheeks, and her skin had a strange yellowish tinge, like the color of lemonade. She always wore the same grubby knit cap, and some of the boys joked around that she wore it because she never washed her hair. No one talked to her.
Friday was Outrageous Day, and we were supposed to come to school in costume. At lunch, the other students laughed and giggled and played around; the class clown, Fred, had covered his body in green paint and wore a shredded T-shirt: he was the Incredible Hulk. He jumped up in the middle of the table and growled at his friends, who pelted him with french fries. The new girl sat by herself in the corner; she wore a grass skirt, c
oconut shells, a leotard, leis around her neck, and a bird of paradise flower in her hair.
Her hair. It was long—down to her waist—and it was thick, black, and shiny. I had never seen anything like it. I made my way over to her. She seemed oblivious to everything except her fries.
“I’m not trying to be weird,” I said. “But your hair’s really pretty. You shouldn’t cover it up in that cap all the time.”
She didn’t look up.
I waited a minute, but I knew that was that. I turned to go.
“Why don’t you sit here?” she said.
I stopped.
She smiled. “I’m Izzy.”
“Really?”
“It’s short for Izmerelda.”
“No, I mean . . . you want me to sit with you?”
She nodded. “I don’t see anybody fighting for the seat, do you?”
I stepped forward, lifted my leg over the bench seat and settled across from her. “My name’s Hailey.”
The spout on my milk didn’t pull apart cleanly. I ripped it open and chocolate spurted in a fountain; some of it landed in her hair. “Oh, shit! I’m sorry!” I fumbled for the napkins on my hot lunch tray and stood up, leaning over the table to help her wipe it.
“It’s okay. It’s hair. It’ll wash out.”
I only half-registered her taking the napkins from my hand and using them to blot her tresses. For the first time, I wondered what that felt like. To touch your own hair, let alone shampoo it—and it probably didn’t hurt, either. Washing my bald head felt like scrubbing a smooth potato—and sometimes it was painful, like someone was pricking my scalp.
I was jealous.
She finished. “See? All better.”
I cleared my throat and sat down, feeling awkward—this had gotten off to a bad start. “That’s a cool costume. I totally love it.”
“It’s what I wear in my dance classes. I take Polynesian dance lessons.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “You take hula? There’s a place around here that teaches that? Where?”
“Downtown Danbury.”
My hopes plunged. She meant Main Street, where they filmed Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train. It was overrun with graffiti and populated by criminals and half-vacant buildings that either needed to be razed or repaired, like the old Palace Theatre. “I don’t think my dad’ll let me go down there.”
“My mom waits with me. It’s pretty safe. Maybe if your dad’ll let you take lessons, you can come with us.”
That night, I sprung the request on him over meatloaf and boxed mashed potatoes. “And if I spend money on these lessons, are you finally going to live up to your full potential?”
“Yes. Totally.”
He chewed, then lifted his glass to his lips and took a couple of gulps of milk. “It’s not going to be a repeat of the spelling bee?”
I could guarantee that—the spelling bee had been his idea, not mine, so it’d been very difficult for me to get into it and focus. The last round had been between me and one other kid who was so fat his bare flesh bulged from beneath his gray sweater. The final word was mahogany.
I’d lost.
“Mahugany, you spelled,” Dad had said. “You almost had it. How could you not have known there’s an ‘o’ and not a ‘u’ in that word?”
I’d wanted to defend myself and say the stupid woman had mispronounced the word—she had, in fact—but I’d known there really wasn’t any excuse for not knowing how to spell it.
Now, I said, “No. I really want to do this.”
He took another bite of meatloaf. “Where is it?”
I told him, thwarting his disapproving expression with “My new friend Izzy says her mom will drive us, and she waits there during the lessons.”
And that is how I learned to hula.
~~**~~
At the pool, Toke takes a step down into the shallow end; I dive in at the deep end. I feel a need to move, to untie every knot in my body. I take the water in long, easy back strokes and feel the sun frying my face; I’ve never been one for any kind of sun block, waterproof or not—we pasty white northern girls need all the sun we can get. I get back to the shallow end, stop, and clear the water from my eyes.
He’s sitting on the top stair, looking at me. “You’re a fish, aren’t you.”
“Yes,” I sheepishly admit. “I love the water.”
“That’s why you wear the cap.”
“The cap?”
“On your head—the swim cap.”
I’d forgotten. I’d actually forgotten! Fear curdles my stomach acid. I stop breathing.
“Don’t see many wearing those unless they’re real balls-on serious swimmers.”
“Oh!” I take a deep breath. “Right. That’s me.”
He stands up, comes down another two steps into the water. “You hula. You swim. What else don’t I know?” He takes another step and is now into the water up to his waist. He wades over to me.
I’m embarrassed, thinking only about what he doesn’t know and how his finding out would ruin everything. “I know. It looks dumb.”
He pulls his hand from the water, sets it on my head.
God what if he figures out that’s not real hair underneath . . .
Stop it, I tell myself. No repeats of the kitchen.
“No. I like it. It’s different.” He runs his hand down the right side of my head, over my ear, down my neck. “I’d wear one too, if I was serious. I’m not really a water person.”
I just blink at him.
He shrugs. “I play with fire for a living.”
I nod. “Right.”
His hand travels down my arm. “Didn’t even swim much in the ocean when I was in Hawaii.”
I’m barely registering what he’s saying, because his hand is touching mine, beneath the water line. “You went to Hawaii?” I envision myself standing next to him on a beach, a real beach. I’ve never been to a real beach.
“Lived there for a while,” he says. “Back when I was mastering the fire stuff. More that I really wanted to embrace the culture. The gods, all of that.”
His face draws closer.
“They have a legend, you know, about fire and water. They need each other. I could tell you about it.”
“Um . . . ” I can’t say a damn thing.
“Relax.” He cradles my hand and lifts it out of the water.
We stand there, my palm against his. His hand is large—really large—compared to mine. It’s like setting a macadamia nut in front of a pineapple.
“It’s true what they say, you know. About a guy’s hands.”
The palm touching his feels hot, but it’s not from the temperature, and I don’t want to admit I have no idea what the hell he’s talking about, nor do I care.
And then I feel something brushing my left breast.
For a second I think it’s his other hand, but when I try to (subtly) glance at my chest, it’s not there.
There isn’t anything there except my tankini’s hula dancer pattern.
And the girl directly over my left nipple winks at me.
Stop, I think. Stop.
I feel something brush the outside of my left thigh. It’s his hand. And it moves toward me, settles on my suit bottom.
I part my legs. My breath catches in my throat.
“You like that?”
“Yes,” I whisper.
But there’s another feeling. Something crawling. On my right breast, now.
It’s his hand, I think, but then I realize no, one hand is beneath my suit bottom, teasing me, and the other . . . the other is on the small of my back.
Something slithers on my right breast. He’s pressed against me, now, his mouth against my ear—
I try to pull away but he’s strong.
“Relax,” he says again.
Slithering. It’s under both cups now, and it’s . . . oh God. It’s starting between my legs.
I can’t stand it. I wrench away from him and there is the face of one
of the hula girls on my breast, her mouth full of daggers, her eyes running with blood—
I scream and stumble away from him, swatting at my chest.
“What is with you?”
Gnashing. The girl on my left breast growls and her face distorts, melts—
“Forget it.” He turns his back to me, making for the stairs.
The slithering stops.
“Wait—”
But he’s already exiting. “You change your mind, come see me.”
He trudges up and out, accompanied by the spit-swish sound of the water drops from his body pelting the cement. He goes to a patio chair and grabs his towel, slings it over his shoulder.
Then I remember. “Um, what about a ride?”
He doesn’t even look back. “I’ll call a cab.”
~~**~~
Fortunately the basic, intermediate, and advanced hula classes all met at the same time, so carpooling with Izzy was no problem. Miss Alana, who taught basic, was very impressed with how quickly I learned the steps—she noted that, in her opinion, the ami poe poe, which isn’t exactly hard (it’s that counterclockwise turn on the left foot and stepping with the right)—is where an instructor can really tell if someone has the natural gift of sway. “You’re exquisitely graceful,” she said, and I was soon moved up to the intermediate, and then advanced level—which was the class Izzy was in, taught by Mrs. Palakiko.
That’s when the trouble started.
It wasn’t long before I’d mastered the advanced steps and routines, and by May, it was announced that the school was going to hold heats to select that year’s Pineapple Princess—the advanced dancer who’d represent Danbury Diamond Head Hula Studio in the state (and hopefully the regional) spring competitions.
The Friday night of the competition, the studio’s auditorium was full of parents—including my dad. He hadn’t seen me dance at all, save for the couple of times he’d stuck his head into my room while I was practicing my kaholo and lele uwehe and whatever else.
As the twenty of us paraded out to the floor for the first heat, I thought I was going to throw up. My father was in the front row. We met each other’s gaze, and he held up a palm and waved.
The Shadows Behind Page 10